Fewer National Agencies, Simpler Grants: How Erasmus+ 2028–2034 Proposes to Cut Red Tape

Fewer National Agencies, smaller grants with less paperwork — the Erasmus+ 2028–2034 proposal leans hard into simplification. Here’s what it actually commits to, quoted directly.

Across the Erasmus+ 2028–2034 proposal, one theme comes up more than any other: reducing administrative burden. For school coordinators who’ve filled in an Erasmus+ grant application before, that’s probably the most immediately relevant part of the whole draft. Here’s what it actually says, not just the headline.

Fewer National Agencies

The proposal states its intention plainly in Recital 49 of the draft regulation:

“Measures should be taken to streamline the management of the Programme and achieve economies of scale including by limiting and reducing the number of national agencies.”

What this doesn’t say is which countries or agencies would be affected, or how — that level of detail isn’t in the founding regulation. It’s worth being clear about what this is: an administrative consolidation goal at EU level, aimed at reducing duplicated overhead now that Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps are merging into one framework. Nothing in the text suggests it means less support or fewer contact points for schools applying — but it’s also not something we can promise, since the proposal simply doesn’t specify implementation yet.

A new “very low value” grant category

This is the part most likely to matter to smaller schools. The Commission’s own summary of the proposal describes introducing “very low value grant partnerships with a strongly reduced administrative burden for applicants.” The current programme already has a related threshold worth knowing: for grants up to €15,000, applicants are already exempt from financial capacity verification — and under the EU’s Financial Regulation, starting with the next Multiannual Financial Framework, even the Declaration on Honour won’t be required for grants at that size. That’s a real, already-confirmed simplification, not a proposal detail — it comes from the EU Financial Regulation itself, which the 2028–2034 programme will operate under.

What the proposal adds on top is the intent to build an entire lighter-weight partnership category around that kind of grant size — Recital 35 frames the goal directly: “In order to make the Programme more accessible for newcomer organisations and for organisations with smaller administrative capacity and to make the Programme more manageable for beneficiaries, the Programme should reinforce the measures to simplify procedures at all stages.”

Simplified costs, not itemised budgets

The draft leans further into a shift that’s already underway in the current programme: paying grants as lump sums, unit costs, and flat rates instead of requiring beneficiaries to itemise and justify every cost. Recital 40 states that “simplified cost options in the form of lump sums, unit costs and flat rates should be used to the maximum possible extent,” and Article 12(5) writes this directly into how funding gets awarded: financing “not linked to costs” is the default, with actual-cost reimbursement kept only “where the objectives of an action cannot be achieved otherwise.” In plain terms, that means fewer receipts to justify after the fact and a grant amount you can plan around in advance.

Accreditation isn’t going anywhere

If you’ve been through the accreditation process, or are considering it, here’s the reassurance worth having: the proposal explicitly keeps accreditation as a core structure, not something being phased out in favour of the new lighter categories. The Commission’s own explanatory text states accreditation “will continue to provide organisations with a structured framework for continuous improvement and simplified access to funding” — the very-low-value grants are additional, not a replacement.

What this means for your planning now

None of this changes anything about applying for or running courses today — the current 2021–2027 rules and grant thresholds apply until this regulation is adopted, and it hasn’t been. But if you’ve found the application or reporting process heavier than you’d like, the direction of travel here is toward less of it, not more, and that’s a fairly unusual thing to say with confidence about EU funding rules. We’re tracking how these specific commitments hold up through the rest of the negotiation and will update our 2028–2034 overview as it develops.